Earth Day

April 21, 2007

I ran the Mothers for Clean Air 5K in Bellaire this morning. I ended up around 22:11.

Race temperature was 66° with 96% humidity. My goal was to break the 7 minute/mile barrier at 21:42. I was slightly ahead of schedule at 1 mile but may have used up too much to weave through early race traffic. At 2 miles, I was right on my overall pace but was slowing. For the last mile, I ran side-by-side with another runner who came up from behind me. He helped pull me in. At 3 miles, I took a couple big breaths and tried to kick it in and passed a couple of runners down the stretch. In my flailing, I didn't get a good read on the overhead finish clock provided by Run Wild Sports.

The race was chip timed (without a start mat). I estimate I was 5-8 seconds after the gun to get across the starting line. I had my watch but had agreed to forgo keeping my time to keep time for my fourteen year old son who forgot his watch. (It's a whole other story that he rolled out of bed only 20 minutes before we had to leave for the race.) But the race was chip timed so everything would be alright, right? Wrong! After getting back to the house, I checked the race results online at Inside Texas Running . My time was not listed! I called Run Wild Sports and spoke to someone who was apparently at the race. He said the race organizers weren't very organized and that he has 26 finish times that weren't associated with any particular runner due to bad or no information from the race organizers. He asked that I email my information and he'd try to determine if one of the 26 unassociated times was mine. Hopefully he has something for me. My left brain really needs a concrete time to attach to this race.

As a result of not having a time associated with my finish, my team - Klein Runners - were not recorded in the team results. Teams could enter with as many runners as they wanted but only the top three runners "scored" for the team. Teams were then to be ranked based on cumulative time. The Klein Runners consisted of only three runners: Rory Jones (who PR'd at 18:56 and took second in 19U [he's 14!]); Cameron Birt (who, notwithstanding the late wakeup call, also PR'd at 24:40); and myself (estimated at 22:11). Assuming my time is correct, our team time is 1:05:47. The winning team - TCEQ - was 1:05:35 anchored by Joe Oviedo's 16:59.

Joe happens to be my coach with Power in Motion . Joe is a very good coach and an effortless runner. I, of course, would have loved to edge out his team but will have to settle for coming close at 12 seconds off the pace. It will still make for good conversation when we're running ladders on Wednesday.